


Once Upon a Time in Auradon

by RyanInTheTARDIS



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies), Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Crossover, Friendship, M/M, Post-Descendants 3, Post-S6 of Once Upon a Time, Pre-S7 of Once Upon a Time, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:54:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25552390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyanInTheTARDIS/pseuds/RyanInTheTARDIS
Summary: While Henry is journeying through the Realms of Story in search of his own adventures, an accident throws him through a portal to a realm not found in any of the Author's storybooks - a realm known as the United States of Auradon.
Relationships: Henry Mills & Carlos de Vil
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Prologue

It was a rare day of peace within the Enchanted Forest – no ogres destroying villages, no evil witches casting dark curses, and no Dark One making dangerous deals to trap someone into a lifetime of debt. The bright sunlight filtered through the canopy of leaves, which had never looked healthier in the many years since the Evil Queen had cast the first Dark Curse and sent so many to the Land Without Magic. A light breeze swept through the trees, gently kicking up leaves and dusting them across the dirt road that had seen so much traction over the ages.

If anyone had been around to hear it, they would have their spirit lifted by the joyful birdsong floating in the air, which was soon joined by a low, gentle, and steady rumble. A rumble slowly growing deeper, louder, more prominent, and aggressive, so much so that it had drowned out the birdsong – not that it would be heard anyway, as the birds had fled, scared by the oncoming storm. A second distinct rumble was growing with it, becoming a heavy thudding, each impact shaking the trees and causing leaves to fall loose and flit down to the ground.

“C’mon, c’mon!” The brave knight urged, revving the throttle of his ferocious steed, begging it for as much power as the mechanised beast beneath him could muster, but it had nothing left to give, already pushing itself to its absolute limit. The rider was doing his best to keep his path straight and true, but with each titanic footfall behind him, that task was made ever more difficult, being shaken and wobbled by the shockwaves.

The behemoth pursuing the knight was managing to keep up with him, thundering along less than 20 feet behind. It swung out its wide arm, ripped a small tree out of the ground and with a mighty roar, threw it towards the rider. Thankfully, the knight glanced into his rear-view mirror just in time, and adjusted his weight over, veering his steed just enough for the tree to fly past him and crash to the floor ahead of him. He rode up and off a bank, sailing over the tree in his path, which was then smashed to splinters as the monster behind crushed it underfoot.

At the horrific crunch of wood behind him, the rider looked back over his shoulder, seeing the overgrown troll he’d been fleeing for days now still keeping up with him. “This is all just a big misunderstanding!” He yelled to the beast, who bellowed something unintelligible in reply. “I didn’t know the goats were yours!” The knight shouted, eyes now back on the road ahead of him. “If I had, I’d never have set them free from your farm!”

“YOU MAKE ME LOSE INCOME!” The troll roared back. “NOW ME DAIRY FARM RUINED!”

“In my defence, I thought you were going to eat them!” The knight cried, before quickly leaning his steed to the side to dodge another tree flying in his direction. “And how can you run a dairy farm with just three goats?!”

“HOW I RUN DAIRY FARM WITH NO GOATS?!?!” the troll bawled angrily, ripping another tree up from its roots to use as another projectile.

“Good point, and I’m still very sorry!” He knew his apologies would fall on deaf ears, but he had learnt many things from his large extended family, one of those things being that you should say what you have to say, even if no one listens.

Not that anyone else in his family had destroyed an independent business by mistakenly releasing the business owner’s livestock, but that particular piece of advice was transferrable here. Sure, both his mother and his grandfather had ruined a lot of things in their lives, but they had sought and found their redemption. His other mother and her parents were also guilty of their own dark moments, and they too had been forgiven.

But this? This was totally, completely, one hundred per cent, absolutely, without a doubt, an honest mistake. When he’d passed through the town of Underbridge and seen a troll sleeping in a barn which was adjacent to a small field of three nervous-looking (though on second thoughts, probably just hungry) goats, he’d mistakenly assumed the troll had robbed the townsfolk of their livestock and had penned them in so its next meal wouldn’t be escaping. Naturally, his heroic instincts kicked in and he opened the gate and ushered the goats towards freedom and safety from being eaten in the next few hours.

Instead, he’d managed to single-handedly destroy a small business, deny the town of its milk supply, and piss off a creature that was easily ten times his height and could likely grind him into a smooth paste with just its big toe.

Today was not a good day to be Henry Mills.

“YOU PAY, WITH INTEREST!!” the troll roared, hurling the tree forward with all its might. Henry’s eyes darted to the rear-view mirror, but there was no projectile to be seen. Then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He snapped his head to what he’d seen, and watched a tree flying up towards a mountain ridge up above them, flying as fast and as true as if it had been fired from Robin Hood’s bow.

Doing his best to keep his motorcycle steady and keep an eye on the road ahead, Henry watched as the tree crashed into the ridge and exploded into pieces. The impact cracked the ridge, causing large chunks of rock and earth to tumble down the steep slope, the landslide ploughing through everything in its way, and coming to a stop a few hundred feet in front of Henry’s path, completely blocking the road.

Henry’s eyes widened, picturing his impending death as his motorcycle slammed him into the obstruction with enough force to shatter all his bones and leave him so disfigured, his own moms wouldn’t recognise him.

“No, I’m not dying today, not like this!” Keeping one hand in place to steer, he quickly reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, clear bean that glittered with all the stars of all the realms it could take him to. “No second chances. Gotta time this perfectly.” He held the bean tight in his clenched fist, ready to throw. “Please don’t let me die,” he whispered to whatever god or fairy or sorcerer might be listening, before flinging the bean forward with all his strength. If he wasn’t as pressed for time as he was, he’d have likely given a lot more thought to where he wanted this bean to take him. However, he had exactly no time at all, and the only thought in Henry’s head as the bean left his hand was ‘ _Anywhere but here._ ’

The bean flew forward, bounced against a felled tree in the rubble of the landslide, and dropped pathetically to the ground. The troll knew what Henry was trying to do, and had found an extra burst of speed, desperate to not let his debtor get away. “Please,” Henry whined. He quickly looked back and his blood ran cold as he saw the troll inching closer to him. “Please, please, PLEASE!” he frantically begged, not wanting his end to come at the hands of a troll or the sudden stop coming up ahead of him.

The bean sunk into the ground, and in its place sprang up a bright spinning circle of orange sparks, the inside shimmering and waving, obscuring what lay beyond it. With the portal open, and his escape assured, Henry released the breath he hadn’t realised he was holding. He doubled down on the throttle, eager for the chase to be over.

“NOOOO!!” The troll howled, and it dived forward, arms outstretched. The tremor of its body hitting the ground was enough to make Henry wobble, and he fought the bike to keep control. The portal was so close now, he could hear the crackling of the sparks. If he was going to die today, and he really hoped he wasn’t, it was going to be on the other side of this portal. Though as the troll’s outstretched fingers clipped the rear-wheel of the motorcycle, knocking the whole back end of the bike unsteady, it seemed Henry’s death was certain.

The motorbike tipped completely, throwing Henry from the saddle, and he closed his eyes tight, not wanting to see what was coming. Then he felt it, the familiar warmth and strange tingle that came with passing through a portal. He had escaped the troll. He had absolutely no idea where he would come out, but his end was not going to come at the hands of a furious dairy farming troll.

The warmth and tingle ended, and Henry flew out of the portal. He fell hard against a bed of colourful flowers and bounced off the soil, flying a little further to crush some healthy green grass. He rolled to a stop and was left feeling like he’d just been through the fastest cycle of the world’s largest tumble-dryer. With his head spinning, the crashing and crunching sound of metal as his bike came through the portal behind him felt distant. Luckily, it came to a stop before it could roll over Henry, and as he tried to push himself up, the engine coughed and spluttered, before finally puttering out, leaving a grey smoke rising from its corpse.

Henry had managed to get up to his knees and tried to look around. The world around him was still moving all topsy-turvy, but he could make out a grand building – a castle? – with a pair of (rather blurry) blue and yellow banners draped down its front parapets.

He put one foot against the floor, and with his hands on his knees tried to push himself up, but now that the imminent danger had passed and the adrenaline was leaving him, so was his strength. He was half-way to standing before his legs gave out and he began to fall forward, exhaustion taking over his body.

“Hey!” Out of nowhere, a pair of arms reached out for Henry to fall into. The body the arms were attached to dropped to its knees to lower him more gently to the ground, and the stranger turned Henry over so he could see the face of the man who had been spat out of the glowing circle. The stranger leaned in, a hand on Henry’s cheek to keep his head still, and as the blackness closed in around Henry’s vision, he could just make out a short shock of straight black-rooted white hair atop the stranger’s head. “Hey, yo…..na be o…..Wha…..ur name?” The voice was growing more and more faint.

“Henry… Mills…” he exhaled before finally giving into the fatigue wracking his body and passing out completely.

The stranger felt a knot growing in the pit of his stomach, worried for this Henry Mills who had fallen out of a magic circle and into his lap. “You’re gonna be alright, Henry,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his distressed black jeans and pulling out his smartphone. His moved his thumb quickly across the screen, then raised it to his ear. “Jane?” he asked, relieved that she had answered quickly. “It’s Carlos, I need your mom’s help. A man and a motorbike just fell out of a glowing circle on the front lawn outside Auradon University, and he’s really hurt. Please, you gotta come quickly,” he pleaded, hoping that the fact Henry had gone limp didn’t mean that he was now holding a dead body in his lap. “Thank you, just please hurry!” He pulled the phone away, ended the call, and jammed it back into his pocket. “I don’t know if you can hear me Henry,” he started, flattening a dishevelled tuft of hair against Henry’s head, “but help is on the way.


	2. Chapter 1

“I’ve done everything I can for now,” the Fairy Godmother said as she lowered her wand from over Henry’s sleeping body. She had used her magic to make Henry lighter so Jane and the Villain Kids (not that they were kids any more, but Villain Young Adults wasn’t as catchy an acronym as VKs) could carry him inside more easily, and then spent the better part of an hour healing the majority of the injuries Henry had sustained after falling out of the portal.

She turned from looking over Henry to looking back to her daughter and the VKs, a look of concern on her face as she saw how worried Carlos looked, who was cradling Dude in his arms and stroking his sandy, rough hair. “Try not to worry, Carlos,” she said softly, stepping forward and giving his shoulder a light squeeze. “All he needs now is to rest. I’ve cast a very mild sleeping spell, just enough to keep him asleep until he’s complete healed up.”

“Thank you, Fairy Godmother,” Carlos replied with a sigh of relief.

“He’ll probably ache all over for a day or two once he wakes up, but other than that, he’ll be bippity-boppity-back to normal.” She gave the VKs a reassuring smile, before sliding her wand into a pocket of her periwinkle blue pantsuit. “Hard to say when he’ll wake up though. Could be later today, could be sometime tomorrow, could be later than that. So maybe someone can check on him every couple of hours?”

“We all will,” volunteered Evie, earning a disgruntled look from Jay.

“Speak for yourself,” he whined, throwing his hands behind his head. “I’ve got a rather busy day of doing absolutely nothi-Oof!” He let out a groan and doubled over, and Mal drew her elbow back out from Jay’s stomach.

“We _all_ will, won’t we Jay?” she repeated, tucking some of her pale purple hair behind her ear as she looked at the bent over man.

“Yeah, all of us,” he murmured, raising a thumbs up. “Go team.” He gave his now-tender stomach a rub as he straightened back up.

“You can count on me too,” yapped Dude. The mutt was going to make sure he did his part, even if he was now the dog equivalent of middle-aged.

“Fabulous,” Fairy Godmother clapped her hands together. “Luckily, the dormitories weren’t totally full, otherwise I don’t know where we would have put him.” She gave the kids a smile and swept her handbag up under her shoulder. “Jane, give me a call when he wakes up, he might need a little something for the pain,” Jane gave her mother a nod, but Mal stepped forward.

“I know I’m still not perfect with good magic, but I could probably handle that if you give the recipe?” she offered, partly because she wanted to be helpful, but still partly because she felt like there were people who were waiting for her to ‘slip up’ and do something evil, revealing her ‘true nature’. She was mostly sure that Fairy Godmother wasn’t one of these people, but still, every good deed she could do was another thing that proved her true goodness.

“That’s a good idea, Mal,” beamed Fairy Godmother. She pulled out her phone, tapped the screen a few times, then put it away again. “I just messaged you on StoryBook with the recipe. Jane’s helped me make it plenty of times, so I’m sure that she can help you out if you need it.” Jane nodded, giving Mal an eager smile.

“Thanks,” Mal replied with a smile.

“Oh, brilliant! This stranger is lucky to have the four-” Dude let out a low growl at that, and Fairy Godmother gave him an apologetic look. “Sorry, _five_ of you looking after him.” Fairy Godmother smiled widely. “Now Jane, honey, I brought a couple pumpkin pies with me on my trip. I know you love them, and I didn’t know when I’d get to see you again now you’re at uni, and you don’t visit home as often…” She listed, reaching over to finger a curl of Jane’s hair, making the young woman blush.

“Moooom,” Jane whined, feeling a little embarrassed in front of her friends. “You’re on the board of governors and you’re here every couple of weeks.”

“I know honey, I think it should be every couple of days too,” Fairy Godmother sighed and gave Jane’s cheek a light pinch. Jane giggled, and the VKs laughed with her.

“Love you, Mom.” Jane stepped forward and squeezed Fairy Godmother, who eagerly hugged her back.

“Love you too,” Fairy Godmother said with a cheery smile. She stepped back from her daughter and gave everyone a wave. “I’ll see you all another day, be good!” The VKs said their goodbyes to Fairy Godmother, and Jane left with her mother.

Evie sat herself on the edge of the bed Henry laid in, resting a hand over his own and squeezing it lightly. “Carlos, did he tell you anything else besides his name before he passed out?” She asked, turning to look at the white-haired man. Carlos shook his head in response, and walked over to a nearby desk chair, sitting down and letting Dude jump out of his arms and down to the floor.

“I think I was lucky to get even that.” He dragged his hand through the top of his hair, pushing his white hair apart and exposing the black roots. “The guy looked really beat up when he flew out of that glowy hole thing.” Carlos turned his head to look at Henry, brow furrowed with anxiety and worry. “Reckon he’ll wake up soon?”

Jay walked over to the bed, casually tossing an apple in his hand. He took a bite from the apple, and with his free hand, gave Henry a gentle tap on the cheek, to which Evie scowled. “Out like a light,” he answered Carlos, quickly taking a second, sheepish bite of his apple when he noticed the looks he was getting from the others.

“This recipe looks easy enough,” Mal pondered aloud, eyes pointed down at her phone as she read the recipe Fairy Godmother had forwarded her. She looked up and walked across to Carlos, pocketing her phone as she moved. She threw an arm around Carlos, squeezing the lad as she let her head rest atop his. “Don’t sweat it, he’s got five-” she glanced to Dude, who gave a doggish smile from where he had jumped up onto the bed and curled up at Henry’s feet “kick-ass nurses looking out for him.” A small smile grew on Carlos’ face at Mal’s reassurance.

“Ooh, I could make outfits!” Evie perked up, having pulled a pencil and small sketchbook from her purse, and had begun to sketch something out.

Carlos couldn’t hold back the laugh. “I know white is a colour I work, but I don’t think I’ve got the legs for a skirt.” Evie looked up from her book, smiling brightly at him.

“Well, I do.” Jay chimed in, putting a foot on the desk to show off his muscular thigh and calf.

“I think I’d look cute in one of those little hats,” Dude said, wriggling over to look at what Evie was drawing.

Evie laughed, and gave Dude a scratch behind his ear. “Then I’ll make one especially for you,” she cooed, laughing.

A loud chime interrupted the laughter, and Mal pulled her phone back out from her pants. “It’s Ben,” she started, answering the obvious unasked question. “He needs me to join him for some royal business. Apparently, we’ll be organising a trip to Arendelle to meet the new queen there.”

“New queen?” Evie wondered, slightly confused. “Queen Elsa’s not in power anymore?”

“No, her sister Anna recently took the throne,” Mal answered, slipping her phone away again. “Text me when it’s my turn to come check on him?” She asked as she walked backwards towards the door.

There was a chorus of affirmative answers, and Mal smiled in thanks. She turned to the door and was about to leave, when she stopped, turning back to face everyone. “I just got a wicked idea.” She paused for a moment, noticing the somewhat worried looks she was getting from the others. “No, wicked good.” She walked back, leaning forward with her hands on the bedframe at the bottom of the bed. “We don’t know when Henry’s gonna wake up, so it could happen while he’s here alone, right?”

“Yeah, it could,” Carlos said, looking across to the sleeping man.

“So, maybe we should make a video or something that we can leave on a laptop or tablet, something he can watch that tells him what happened, where he is, and who we are? Then if he wakes up when none of us are about, he’s not going to be totally confused and lost?” She looked to each of her friends, glad to see supportive looks on their faces.

“That’s a really good idea, Mal,” Evie said, getting to her feet and smoothing out her deep blue skirt. “Everyone record a little something, and then Carlos, you could edit them together into a video for our Sleeping Handsome.” She reached over, giving the sleeping Henry’s hair a tousle.

“Yeah, no problem. Send me the files, and I can get it done.” Carlos gave his friends a smile, the first real, happy smile he’d had since this stranger had fallen out of the sky and into his arms.

* * *

“I’m guessing you didn’t get the chance to tell them, did you?” Jane asked, her rounded rosy face lighting up the screen of Carlos’ laptop.

Carlos frowned and shook his head in response. Lying on his stomach, he shifted slightly to make the pillow that he was lying on more comfortable. “ Between having a total stranger fall out of a sky hole, and making a video to explain everything to him when he wakes up, no Jane, I didn’t find the time to tell my closest friends that I think I might be gay,” he said bitterly.

“Carlos!” Jane reprimanded, her eyebrows drawing together. The lad sighed, and covered his face, not meaning for his words to come out like that.

“I’m sorry” he groaned, pulling the pillow up from under his stomach to rest his chin on it.

Jane gave him a sympathetic look from the other side of the connection. “It’s okay. I can’t imagine how worried you must be about it.”

“Very. More worried than I’ve ever been before,” Carlos admitted before burying his face into the pillow.

Jane’s heart ached for her ex-boyfriend. She wished she could be there so they could talk in person, and she could give him a big hug and stroke his hair to calm him. If she were in her dorm room, it wouldn’t be a long walk, but unfortunately, her mother had insisted she come home for the night. “They’re your best friends, Carlos. They aren’t going to care about whether you like boys or girls, they’ll just care about you being happy. They aren’t like your mom.” Jane regretted mentioning her the moment the words had left her lips. One thing she had learnt during their relationship was that Carlos only talked about his mother on his terms, and no-one else’s.

Carlos was quiet for a moment before his head slowly lifted, his dark eyes red and slightly teary. “I know they aren’t like her. But when you grow up with someone like her for years, who will find any reason to tell you how useless you are and that you don’t deserve anything good in your life and that everything you touch will be made worse…” He paused, rubbing the palms of his hands at his eyes. “It’s a hard belief to break.” He sniffled, reaching over to his nightstand for a tissue to blow his nose into.

“Carlos,” Jane said softly, looking sad on the screen. “Jay, Mal, Evie, they’ve been with you through your toughest times, and for some of them so have Ben and I. All of us love you. I didn’t react badly to it, did I?” she asked, hoping to reassure him. Carlos tossed the tissue across the room, not looking to see if it landed in the bin.

“No, you didn’t,” Carlos agreed, giving her a sad smile. “but I think that was because, to me, it felt like you kinda knew already.”

“In some ways, I think I kinda did,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Not that you were gay, I mean, more that…” she was quiet for a moment, trying to think of the right words. “When we were together, it didn’t feel like you were totally there. Like, a part of you wasn’t present, and I thought it was the part of you that could love me,” she explained, hoping she was making as much sense as she thought she was. “But I guess it turns out that it wasn’t just me, but girls in general.”

Carlos thought back to how he’d behaved when he and Jane had been a couple. Of course, she was right. When it was new, everything he did, he did because he thought it was the right thing to do, and that made Jane happy, which in turn made Carlos happy. However, in hindsight, he could see how he had grown somewhat distant from her and doing what he thought was right to make her happy became him just going through the motions.

Jane had been the one to draw the line in the sand and make Carlos sit down and talk about it. Carlos had told her that he’d fallen out of love with her, and at the time, it really hurt Jane to hear that. It had hurt Carlos too, to see his own mixed up feelings and actions hurting one of his best friends. They didn’t talk for a few days after, but when they did finally talk again, Carlos knew he owed Jane the truth. As soon as the words left his mouth, Jane had thrown her arms around him and given him the tightest hug he’d ever had in his life.

They spent the rest of the day in Carlos’ dorm room, talking, crying, and laughing together. Jane swore not to tell a soul what Carlos had told her – this was his to tell, not hers. It lifted some of the weight off Carlos to have let someone in on the secret he was carrying, and it ended up making Jane feel better too. S

he had spent time beating herself up over not being enough for him, when it turned out she may have never been right for him to begin with. It still stung, as she did really care for Carlos, but the pain had lessened. Now knowing Carlos’ secret, his behaviour made more sense, and she could see how much it had hurt him to keep how he felt bottled up and buried inside. Jane had learned from her mother that you don’t abandon people who need help, and she was not going to abandon Carlos. After that day, even though the relationship had ended, their friendship had grown so much stronger.

“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you reacted badly,” Carlos said quietly, unable to make eye contact with the image of Jane on his screen. “Maybe I would have gone back to the Isle and found a quiet place to hide away where everyone could forget about me,” he mused. Even if his friends couldn’t find him, he was sure there was one person who would.

“Well, you’ll never have to know what that’s like. Your friends are good people, and they will love you just as much as they do now,” Jane said reassuringly.

Carlos took a deep breath before looking up from the keyboard to meet Jane’s eyes. “You’re right. You’re always right.” He gave her an appreciative smile. “Hopefully I can find the time to tell them soon.”

“Don’t rush yourself. You’ll know when it’s righ-” She was cut off as she yawned, her arms stretching up above her head. “when it’s right.”

“I’ll let you get some sleep,” Carlos smirked, taking the less-than-subtle hint.

“Okay Carlos. Speak to you later.” Jane waved, then the screen went dark, the only light left in the room now coming from the dim lamp on Carlos nightstand, and the pale moonlight passing through a gap in the curtains.

Carlos closed the lid of his laptop and carried it over to his desk. Flopping back down onto his bed, he pulled the blanket over him and clutched a pillow tight against his body. Dude was usually with him, curled up at his side, but he was currently a few rooms down the hall, in the room where the still sleeping Henry Mills lay.

Carlos closed his eyes and took a couple deep breaths, pushing aside the thoughts of his friends turning on him, and instead trying to think of things that relaxed him. He thought about video games, going on walks with Dude, spending time in the sun with a good book and good friends. ‘ _No nightmares for me tonight,_ ’ he thought, breathing deeply and calmly. He began to think about the sleeping stranger down the hall. Was he dreaming? Could he hear them in his sleep when they had been in his room to check on him? Carlos’ last thought before he finally drifted off to sleep was about how Henry Mills would react once he had woken up.


End file.
